


i would beg to disagree (but begging disagrees with me)

by talkwordytome



Series: Emily-verse (Ratched) [6]
Category: Ratched (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emily-verse, F/F, Light Angst, Period-Typical Homophobia, do not fuck with Emily about her moms, she will not hesitate to fuck you up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27889687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkwordytome/pseuds/talkwordytome
Summary: Emily is not blind to the truth of the world. She knows that there are plenty of people who think that Mildred and Gwendolyn are deviants, or that they’re sick. But Emily doesn’t suffer fools, and she has no patience for those people and their hopelessly narrow minds. They can lecture on propriety and morals and traditional values all they want, but nothing--nothing--will ever change the fact that Gwendolyn looks at Mildred like she hung all the stars in the sky.in which Emily is like, "these are my moms, and if you have a problem with that, you can fight me about it."
Relationships: Gwendolyn Briggs & Original Character(s), Gwendolyn Briggs/Mildred Ratched, Mildred Ratched & Original Character(s)
Series: Emily-verse (Ratched) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036965
Comments: 49
Kudos: 90





	i would beg to disagree (but begging disagrees with me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SBWomenofMarvel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBWomenofMarvel/gifts).



> for SBWomenofMarvel, who requested it. Hope you enjoy it, boo!
> 
> TW for some period-typical homophobia at the beginning of the story
> 
> Rated Teen for very mild language
> 
> In case you aren't checking the timeline I posted (which would be more than fair), this fic takes place in October of 1957
> 
> Title comes from the song "Under the Table" by Fiona Apple

No one ever thought to explain to Emily Ratched--Ratched-Briggs, really, in every way that matters except for the paperwork--what it meant, _really_ meant, when they said that Mildred Ratched and Gwendolyn Briggs loved each other. 

She can still remember being in the car with Anna, years ago now, on her way to meet Mildred and Gwendolyn for the first time. How Anna had haltingly, carefully explained that her adoptive parents were two women, not a husband and wife.

 _Are they sisters?_ Emily had asked, and Anna’s mouth had curled up in the sort of smile that adults always exchanged when children said something funny but didn’t realize it. 

_Not sisters, no._

_Are they friends?_

_Yes. And no._

Anna had sighed and peered at Emily in the rearview mirror. _What matters_ , she’d said, _is that they love each other so much, and they’re going to love_ you _so much, Emily. And if anyone tries to say it’s wrong of them_ , _it’s_ that _person who’s wrong, not Mildred and Gwendolyn. And not you._

Emily had pondered this. _But why_ , she’d finally asked, _would anyone think it’s wrong for two people to love each other?_

Anna had smiled sadly. But she never gave Emily an answer.

Emily had watched Gwendolyn and Mildred curiously during her early weeks with them, searching for clues that might unlock the great mystery of their relationship. They were friends, that much she could see, but they were something else, something _more_. _Yes. And no._ Emily saw it, the _more_ , in the way they looked at each other: soft glances, full of longing, exchanged at the breakfast table, while they watched _Jack Benny_ on the sofa, when they brushed their teeth before bed. In the way Mildred grabbed for Gwendolyn’s hand when she was overwhelmed, or frustrated, or scared. In the way Gwendolyn asked about Mildred’s day like she really wanted to know the answer.

Whatever it was, it made Emily feel safe. She didn’t need to put a name to it to know that it was right, that it was beautiful, that it was good. 

It was when Emily was around eleven that she finally, all at once, understood the _more_ of it all; it wasn’t just love. It was that Mildred and Gwendolyn were _in_ love. The sort of love that makes people want to write poems and songs, because it’s so big and all-encompassing that they can’t possibly explain it any other way. A sleepy Sunday morning kind of love. A love that feels like coming home after a long trip, your person taking you in their arms, _hello darling, I’ve missed you_. 

Emily is not blind to the truth of the world. She knows that there are plenty of people who think that Mildred and Gwendolyn are deviants, or that they’re sick. But Emily doesn’t suffer fools, and she has no patience for those people and their hopelessly narrow minds. They can lecture on propriety and morals and traditional values all they want, but nothing-- _nothing_ \--will ever change the fact that Gwendolyn looks at Mildred like she hung all the stars in the sky. 

Emily’s classmates, for the most part, don’t bother her about her unique life. Her little circle of girlfriends adore sleeping over at her house, adore that Mildred always has homemade fudge waiting, that Gwendolyn pushes back the living room furniture so they have plenty of room to practice the latest dances. To them, Gwendolyn and Mildred are just another set of parents, another set of adult voices in the background, to heed and ignore in equal measure.

Emily is at her locker one October afternoon, collecting her books, when someone sidles up next to her. It’s a new student, Jane something-or-other, who’s in Emily’s third period English class. She has blonde hair lightened with peroxide and smokes out in the courtyard during lunch. She seems perpetually annoyed with everyone around her. She makes Emily uneasy. Right now, she’s chewing gum and she snaps it, loudly, a foot from Emily’s face.

Emily closes her locker, books in her arms. “Hi,” she says, uncertain.

Jane grins, but says nothing in reply. Emily shifts from one leg to the other.

“What is it?” Emily asks. “Do you need something?”

 _Snap_. “Is it true?”

Emily furrows her brow. “Is what true?”

“About those women you live with,” Jane says. _Snap_. “Is it true?”

“My mothers?” Emily asks.

Jane smiles. It looks more like a sneer. “Your _mothers_ ,” she repeats. “Are they really dykes?” _Snap_. “Lesbos?”

Emily flushes. The words are ugly, clunky, as they fall from Jane’s mouth; they’re wrong for Gwendolyn and Mildred. Even if they were _accurate_ they’d never be _true_ ; no words could be less true for their romance, so soft and delicate and sweet. 

Emily sniffs and affects a bored expression. “They’re in love,” she says, shrugging. “What’s wrong with that?”

She turns and walks down the hall. Jane follows her. _Snap_. “How do they fuck?” she whispers, standing over Emily’s shoulder, her breath hot on Emily’s ear. 

Emily walks faster. She clenches her jaw. “Shut up,” she grits out.

Jane laughs, and it’s a cruel sound, pleased that her comment elicited a reaction. _Snap_. “They’re perverts, you know,” she says. “My mother told me all about it.”

Emily holds her books even tighter. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says flatly.

Jane sidesteps so she’s in front of Emily, blocking her exit from the building. 

“Move,” commands Emily. “ _Now_.”

Jane ignores her. _Snap_. “They’re whores,” she says simply. “And they’re going to turn you into one of them, just you wait and see.”

Emily throws her books to the ground. She takes three quick strides towards Jane. There’s a dull crunching sound when her fist connects with Jane’s nose, followed by a spurt of warm, thick liquid that Emily knows is blood. Jane stumbles, wide-eyed with surprise, her hands cupping her face.

“You little _bitch_.”

Jane isn’t caught off-guard for long. Before Emily can react Jane has grabbed a fistful of Emily’s hair. She pulls, hard, and Emily shrieks as she feels a few strands come loose in Jane’s hands. She manages to wrench herself from Jane’s grip and lunges towards Jane again, but this time, Jane is ready. She moves out of Emily’s path, and Emily--turned around and filled with forward momentum--trips over her own feet. She falls forward, her forehead slamming against the sharp edge of the locker bank as she goes.

Her skull vibrates and throbs as it makes contact with the cold metal, and as the world slides out of focus she’s dimly aware that a small group of students and teachers have gathered in a semicircle around her. She thinks, vaguely, _I am going to be in so much trouble_.

Shutters behind her eyes slide close, and then everything goes dark.

* * *

Mildred flies into the hospital lobby with all the power and beauty of a hurricane, Gwendolyn hot on her heels. 

“Where _is_ she?” Mildred demands of the nurse sitting at the reception desk. “ _Where_ is my _daughter_?”

Gwendolyn tries to take Mildred’s elbow, but Mildred moves away from Gwendolyn’s touch. “Well?” she snarls. “What are you waiting for? _Where is she_?”

The nurse is nonplussed. “Name?” she says, consulting her registrar.

“Ratched,” Mildred says. “Emily Ratched. She’s thirteen.”

The nurse leafs through a few pages. She drums her red fingernails against the desk. “She’s getting stitches,” she says after what feels like an entire eternity. “You can see her in the children’s ward when she’s done.”

Gwendolyn gasps. She’s pale, and she looks rather like she might faint. “Stitches?” she asks faintly. “Why on Earth does she need _stitches_?”

The nurse squints at Gwendolyn. “And who are you?”

“ _She_ is none of _your_ goddamn business,” Mildred snaps. “How long until we can see Emily?”

The nurse rolls her eyes. “Look, lady,” she says, addressing Gwendolyn, “I don’t treat them; I just check them in. All’s I know is what I told you: that she’s getting stitches, and they’ll call you back to see her when she’s done. Alright?”

“Fine,” Mildred says coldly. 

She turns on her heel and marches towards the waiting area. Gwendolyn follows. Mildred finds an uncomfortable chair and sits in it ramrod straight, glaring at the desk. To an outsider, the only indication that Mildred is currently experiencing any sort of anxiety would be the relentless tapping of her foot. 

Gwendolyn takes the seat next to Mildred. Gently, cautiously, she puts a hand to Mildred’s shoulders, but Mildred jerks away, as if she’s been burned.

“Don’t _touch_ me,” she hisses.

Gwendolyn stiffens. She pulls back her hand. “Fine,” she says sharply. “I won’t.”

Mildred’s shoulders slump almost imperceptibly, invisible to anyone who isn’t Gwendolyn. The hard, angry light behind her eyes smolders out. Her chin trembles. She folds her hands tightly in her lap.

“Gwendolyn,” she whispers, and then she’s quiet.

“What?” Gwendolyn asks warily, not quite angry, yet not quite ready to forgive, either.

“I--” Mildred begins, her eyes swimming with tears. She roughly wipes them away before trying again. “What if--what if she’s--?” But she cannot finish her thought.

Gwendolyn sighs. She hesitantly rests her hand on Mildred’s arm, and moves in closer when Mildred allows it. 

“She’ll be fine,” she reassures softly. “She _is_ fine.”

The minutes pass by interminably. Mildred and Gwendolyn wait in an uneasy silence, watching as doctors and nurses and patients come and go, come and go. Mildred visits the reception desk several more times, demanding additional information, until the nurse threatens to have Mildred removed from the premises.

“Miss Ratched?”

A doctor stands at the double doors. Mildred and Gwendolyn jump to their feet. The doctor gives Mildred’s hand a firm shake.

“You’re young Emily’s family?” he asks.

“Yes,” Gwendolyn says quickly, and is relieved when he doesn’t demand any additional information regarding how they’re related. “Where is she? What happened? Is she alright?”

The doctor offers Gwendolyn a patient smile. “She’s just fine,” he says. “She’s got a concussion, and a nasty cut on her head that needed a few stitches, but we’ve gotten her all sewed up. It might not even scar too significantly if you’re careful.”

Mildred’s knees buckle, and Gwendolyn wraps a sturdy, supporting arm around her waist. The doctor eyes them, a bit curiously, but chooses not to comment. 

“Can we see her?” Mildred asks, sniffling.

The doctor nods. “She’s recovering in the children’s ward. The reception desk can give you directions.”

They race down the hallway, as close to running as they can get without actually running. Emily is sitting on a narrow bed in the children’s ward, looking younger and smaller than usual in an oversized hospital gown that slips from her shoulders if she’s not paying attention. She has cotton gauze, stained with blood, wrapped around the upper half of her head. 

“ _Emily_ ,” Mildred gasps.

Emily looks up. She smiles sheepishly and offers them a little wave. “Hi, Moms,” she says.

Mildred and Gwendolyn sit next to her and immediately squeeze her between them in an enormous hug. 

“What _happened_?” Mildred asks. She graces a hand over the gauze, chewing her bottom lip as she does so.

Emily bites her own lip, unconsciously mirroring Mildred. She laughs ever so slightly. “If I told you,” she says wryly, “that Kathleen and I fell off the teeter-totter at recess, would you believe me?”

Gwendolyn snorts in spite of herself. Mildred does not.

“ _Emily_ ,” she says, a note of warning in her voice.

“I’ll tell you,” Emily says, “promise. Just…not right now. Not here. Alright?”

Mildred looks ready to argue further, but Gwendolyn shakes her head. Mildred sighs.

“Fine,” she relents. She offers Emily a small smile and pats her on the leg. “Let’s get you home where you can be nice and comfortable, poor thing. Your head must hurt dreadfully.”

They leave with instructions for cleaning Emily’s stitches and changing her gauze. She’s pouty when she finds out she’s not allowed to sleep for more than an hour at once for the next twelve. 

“But I’m _tired_ ,” Emily whines on their walk back to the car. 

Gwendolyn kisses the crown of her head. “We’ll keep you entertained, darling, don’t worry,” she says. “The hours will fly by before you know it.”

By the time they’re home it’s after seven. Mildred settles Emily on the sofa with blankets, fluffy pillows, and her beloved old teddy bear, Ira. Gwendolyn brings her a stack of Archie comics and _Pippi Longstocking_ , one of her favorite sick-in-bed books when she was younger. 

“Are you hungry?” Mildred asks, tucking the blankets tighter around Emily’s legs.

Emily shakes her head, then winces. “Not really,” she says, “my stomach is a bit jumbled.”

“That’ll be the concussion,” Mildred murmurs. “You do need to eat something, though, even if it’s small.”

Emily thinks for a moment before she smiles slyly. “Ice cream?” she asks. “With hot fudge?”

Mildred sighs. “Oh, Emily,” she says, “I really don’t know--”

“What don’t you know?” Gwendolyn asks as she enters the room. She’s carrying two cups of tea; she hands one to Mildred and the other to Emily.

“If I can have ice cream for dinner,” Emily says. She tips her head back and drapes her wrist over her face like a consumptive Austenian invalid. “Even though I’m _wounded_.”

Gwendolyn sits down on the sofa next to Mildred. “How about,” she says gently, “you tell us what happened today, and then maybe we’ll consider the ice cream, hmm?”

Emily sighs. “Did the school call you?”

“Only briefly,” Mildred says, “to tell us about--that you--” she gestures at Emily’s bandage, apparently unable to say the words themselves.

“Mildred hung up the moment she heard the word _hospital_ ,” Gwendolyn says, eyes laughing, as she looks at Mildred fondly. “I’m afraid she rather didn’t let your poor principal talk much at all.”

Emily shifts uneasily beneath her blankets. “Don’t be mad.”

Mildred narrows her eyes. “I’m not quite sure I like how this is starting.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Emily insists.

“ _What_ wasn’t your fault?” Gwendolyn asks.

Emily grabs one of her curls and tugs, an old habit that she only relapses into when she’s especially anxious or upset. Mildred carefully takes Emily’s hand and moves it away. 

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” she says.

Emily nods. She takes a deep breath. “This girl--Jane, she’s new--she just… she was picking at me and picking at me, and I didn’t know _why_ , because I’ve never _done_ anything to her; I’ve never even _spoken_ to her,” she explains. “And I--I tried to ignore her, but it just…got to me, I suppose, because suddenly I was hitting her.” She winces. “By the way, it’s possible I broke her nose.”

“You _broke_ her _nose_ \--?” Gwendolyn interjects, but Mildred shushes her.

Emily swallows and rubs the edge of her blanket between her fingers. “Then she shoved me,” she says, “and when I fell, I hit my head against the edge of the locker bank.”

Mildred and Gwendolyn stare at her. Emily shrinks back against her pillows. “What?” she asks.

Gwendolyn and Mildred exchange a look. “Well,” Gwendolyn says slowly, “it just…doesn’t seem like you. To hit someone just because they were bothering you.”

Emily picks at a cuticle. “It wasn’t so much that she bothered me, exactly,” she says. “It was more…how she bothered me. What she said.”

“And what did she say?” Mildred prompts softly.

Emily suddenly looks as though she might cry. “I don’t want to tell you,” she whispers. “It’ll hurt you.”

Mildred blinks. “Hurt _us_?” she asks, puzzled, glancing sideways at Gwendolyn.

But Gwendolyn’s gaze, level and full of understanding, is trained on Emily. “What did she say about us, Emily?” she asks gently.

Tears do, finally, spill down Emily’s cheeks. “It was so ugly,” she breathes, “and so _mean_. She--she kept saying--she called you these--these words, as though how you are is…is wrong, even though it’s not, and I…I don’t even want to _say_ them when I’m explaining because…because they make me _hurt_ , and--”

She abruptly stops, too overwrought to continue. She buries her face in her blankets and sobs. Gwendolyn and Mildred gather Emily into their arms, like they used to do more often when she was younger, and let her cry until the storm has passed, murmuring comforting little nothings to her as they wait.

When Emily has finally calmed down enough that the sobs have turned into hiccoughing sniffles, Gwendolyn takes a handkerchief from her pants pocket and gives it to Emily. 

“Darling,” she says, crying a bit herself, once Emily has finished blowing her nose, “it was certainly very _noble_ of you to defend our honor like that, you don’t _need_ to. _Especially_ not if it ends with you getting hurt.”

“Yes I _do_ ,” Emily insists. “You’re my moms, and I love you.” She shrugs. _That’s that_.

Mildred hugs Emily so fiercely that Emily squeals. “Watch the head!” she giggles. “I’m injured, remember?!”

Mildred kisses Emily, three times, on her gauze. “I just love you so much,” she murmurs. “My little prize fighter.”

Emily raises her eyebrows. “So…am I in trouble?”

“ _No_ ,” Gwendolyn and Mildred say firmly.

Emily beams, then yawns. “Can I have my ice cream now?” she asks.

“I suppose,” Mildred says, the corners of her mouth twitching, “that someone who devotes their afternoon to ridding the world of injustice does deserve a treat.”

“I completely agree,” Gwendolyn says warmly.

Emily yawns again. She snuggles further into her blankets. “Can I sleep…for just a few minutes,” she mumbles, her eyes already closing, “while…you’re getting it? I’m so…so tired. ”

Mildred pushes soft curls back from Emily’s forehead. “I know you are, sweet girl,” she says. “Rest. There’ll be ice cream waiting for you when you wake up.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any requests, let me know in the comments or on tumblr @ anneofgreengaybles <3 <3 <3


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